Comments for Royal Dutch Shell plc .com

Comment on Shell Blog by retiree

retiree — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:05:15 +0000

Paying over 7 mln $ to get rid of this monster of a woman shows how deeply Shell has sunk. She was a stealer of ideas. She was the ultimate token woman, a disgrace to her gender and it has put off many high quality women to pursue a career in Shell. Her disgusting behaviour of being the slave of Watts was evident to all. This latest scandal makes it clear she should never have been promoted to were she ended up. Another costly mistake of Shell. And the top echelon? They know no shame anymore and carry on with more spin stories as usual.

Comment on Shell Blog by guest1

guest1 — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:58:30 +0000

Perhaps Voser will pull the same trick on Brinded as Watts did on v.d.Vijver. Watts announced that reserves would grow by 5% and that Walter would explain how…. The rest is history.
I can only hope that history will repeat itself and Brinded finally gets fired for his gross underperformance and sustained bullshit. Perhaps I have said so before: never trust a man with facial hair…. I shall be watching the announcements how they will increase production with great interest.

Comment on Shell Oil – The awful truth by Paddy Briggs

Paddy Briggs — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:37:01 +0000

Whoever produced this (was it really AI ?) could have taken the trouble to use the right logotype. The one they show is nearly twenty years old! Sloppy.

Comment on Shell Blog by John Donovan

John Donovan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:57:02 +0000

THE ARTICLE “Donovan email to Gavin White, Shell International Limited: 10 March 2010″ has been updated with a self-explanatory email reply received on 11 March from Richard Wiseman, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Comment on Shell Blog by Outsider

Outsider — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:45:04 +0000

The Forbes article implies that by stopping sales of gasoline to Iran, Shell is complying with US sanctions. Shell’s investments in the upstream sector in Iran are not mentioned, even though these are of far greater significance for both Shell and the Iranians.

Comment on Shell Blog by Paddy Briggs

Paddy Briggs — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:20:20 +0000

Amnesty International has been an informed and courageous critic of Human Rights abuses around the world for many decades and they are certainly not adverse to criticising governments in Nigeria, Burma, Zimbabwe and all around the world. The point about international companies like Shell is that they have a choice. They are not obliged to operate anywhere if they find that the local conditions are in conflict with their principles. Amnesty’s recent criticisms of Shell have certainly been strong and I am aware that in Shell there is a feeling that they have been unfair and to some extent uninformed. So a dialogue between Amnesty and Shell is very much to be welcomed. Amnesty is a highly respected organisation – indeed a former top executive of Shell, Sir Geoffrey Chandler, was a senior officer of Amnesty in his post Shell years.

Comment on Shell Blog by MUSAINT

MUSAINT — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:20:35 +0000

Same old, same old. Amnesty International and their human rights again go for the soft underbelly of the international companies rather than the real problem in Nigeia which is their corrupt Government. Good on Shell for attending and agrreing to being questioned. BUT, surprise, surprise nobody from the Nigerian Government (perhaps they didn’t get enough of a bribe to appear or perhaps Amnesty knew they would get nowhere with them). Pollution in the Niger Delta remains a problem, albeit that conditions are slowly improving. Living conditions, infrastructure and most other normal day-to-day things should be the responsibility of the corrupt Government not international oil companies. These evil governments such as Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Burma need to be bought down by the UN so that their people might have a better chance of a reasonable life.

Comment on Shell defends continued focus on fossil fuel-paper by Paddy Briggs

Paddy Briggs — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:20:17 +0000

Tom Peters seminal book “In Scarce of Excellence” was first published in 1982 and in it there were eight themes for success in business one of was “Stick to the knitting” – i.e. stay with the business that you know. It has taken Shell quite a while to acknowledge Tom Peters’ truism – ironically as there is no major corporation which has made more of a mess of diversification than Shell. Along the way there have been failed ventures in Coal, Mining, Nuclear Power, Electricity Generation, Forestry, Wind Power, Solar, Convenience Stores, Home insulation…

Take the eye of the ball to try and manage things for which you have no corporate memory and no distinctive competences and not only will you not make these things work – but you will also damage the core businesses. But the really venal behaviour was when so much of Shell’s corporate advertising was focused on the essentially trivial “Renewables” sector. Now Shell has come clean (!) and essentially walked away from this segment entirely. Biofuel has always been an interesting sector and there is a long history of biofuel use in some of Shell’s markets – especially Brazil. But in the main Shell has at last decide to “stick to its knitting” – and about time to!

Comment on Shell Blog by guest1

guest1 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:53:59 +0000

Very polite correspondence between Wiseman and the Donovans. I estimate Wiseman’s hourly internal tariff at around 500 U$ per hour (his salary plus support plus extensive overheads). Over the years Shell must have spent a fortune discussing the Donovans, putting the most expensive lawyers on the case, and developing policy how to battle them. It becomes Churchillian: ‘we will fight them on the web, and in the courtrooms, and in their own offices and on the streets. But we wil NEVER surrender. With unlimited funds this maybe so, but it is wasting shareholders money and it solves nothing. I do not see the Donovans give up anytime soon. So perhaps a new paradigm needs to be developed? Any ordinary man or woman at the coalface would solve this problem within minutes and for less money than what is being burned now. But the Shell kings are no ordinary people, they live in cloud cuckoo land.
I will keep following with great interest how all this develops, it is even better than the daily Dilbert!!!

Comment on Shell Blog by LongTermShareholder

LongTermShareholder — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:32:09 +0000

W.E. Pratt knew it already a hundred years ago when he said “Oil is found in the minds of men” But he was one of the founders of the Standard Oil company, whereas the people who try to make us believe that IBM can come to the rescue of Shell appear to be only good at getting rid of their most experienced minds.